Vote for Your Favorite Bats
winner of the Juan Soto sweepstakes reveal winter meetings, so we turn to our next offseason ritual: Ranking the batters in the Nationals minors.
This should be interesting, given how many there are to choose from versus five or ten years ago. He hasn’t graduated yet nor does his birth year start with “19,” so yes, you can vote for Dylan Crews.
Here’s how it goes… Send me your Top 10 list of minor-league position players (40-man guys are eligible as long as they have rookie status; three by my count) to enfieldmass-top10bats[at]yahoo[dot]com (link will open your preferred email client) or post them in the comments.
Later this week, I’ll compile the votes and weight them in reverse order (#1 = 10 points, #2 = 9 points… #9 = 2 points, #10 = 1 point). When it feels like I’ve got a sizable number of submissions (or it’s time to make a post), I’ll update this post to close the polls.
Just a reminder: “bat” is shorthand for “position player.” You probably don’t need to factor in defense, since the Nats don’t either. Not that there are very many glove-first guys from which to choose. That not how this franchise rolls.
We’ll then have the 14th annual NationalsProspects.com Top 10 Bats list.
With the beat writers having been quieter than a Mississippi Civil Rights Commission, I really have no opinions about the free agents the Nats will be passing on. I will say there’s always a chance that a trade could be made, but my gut says they’re not there yet. Pitching is what the big club needs and that’s the wishlist for roughly two dozen teams.
“You probably don’t need to factor in defense, since the Nats don’t either.” Score!
I always enjoy this exercise. There’s going to be a good bit of dart throwing to pick hitters this year, though. All in all, it was not a good season among the field-position players.
The list should be post poned until many hitters have winter leagues , spring training and two months of season under their belts lol !
This falls under holiday hope springs eternal for bats to elevate to the pure original scouting reports on them
Lead off by Hassell 111
Who has that “ small town hero / Roy Hobbs “ aura around him like us Ex- po fans recalled in young Grady Sizemore ( my late mom and I watched Grady hit his fist Midwest League tater in a matinee game in Ft Wayne her hometown .
They were the Wizards then not yet the Tin Cups Caps whatever nickname they are now
JDL ( at least , Santa , bring him up to fourth outfielder for a club
Vasquero for sure may he fulfill his five tool salivating tools warranting over 4 million baby bonus bucks
Seaver
Bazzell
Caleb the Bear
Nick Peoples
And our Texas kid on FRED
Interesting to see who shined and who sputtered in two years off the Fred Nats championship club .
But of course the Messi craze in Miami caused the Marlin swag kiosk in Miami airport to switch to pro soccer swag
there are exclusions from my top ten that would have a good chance at being top five (three??!!) a few years back. I leaned into “favorite” more heavily than some others might.
At first glance, I’m going to have pretty hard time sorting the back half of the list. My top 4 is clear though, even if I expect one of my four is an outlier.
And based on the discussion here and at Todd’s site last year, I’m going to keep folks eligible until they hit the playing time benchmarks (130 AB or 50 IP), regardless of their service time clock. I’m curious how other folks are drawing that line. It’s relevant for Millas and Nunez, though the latter likely falls outside the top 10 and maybe Luke rules the former ineligible due to age.
I use the MLB rules (including service time) since that’s who’s eligible for rookie of the year.
This is the winter that Fords Theatre comes to DC?
Mike Ford on a two way contract ?
Mike Ford and Nats are destined ..
1. Crews
2. House
3. Morales
4. King
5. Lile
6. Wallace
7. Lomavita
Get’s really hard here…
8. Dickerson
9. Bazzell
10. Angel Feliz
Honorable mention: Dashyll Tejeda
Considerations: Vaquero, Hassell, Pinckney, Glasser, Petersen, Cox (probably in that order).
Dickerson was the hardest to place, because, well, he’s never played. And so obviously, he’ll be the one with the widest variance next season. Once Crews graduates, there’s a scenario where he’s our top hitting prospect next season. But he could also become Cristhian Vaquero pt. 2. Who knows.
I may also be higher on Morales than others. But I really don’t see so many red flags from his limited playing time so far to see him drop so precipitously. People were talking about him like a first rounder, and his performance so far has actually been quite good. No, the power hasn’t materialized yet as predicted, but he’s been (substantially) above average at every single level in every single season he’s played so far. His down 2024 season in Harrisburg, where he only hit .269/.362/.384, was actually quite a bit above league average, worth 119 wRC+, all while being 1.5 years below average. Pretty fine, if you ask me.
Morales is the guy I was alluding to as the likely outlier in my top 4 (which I have in the same order that you do).
Another thing about Morales is that, after a rough April and missing a couple months to injury, he got back to AA in early August and finished off the year with 136 PAs of 147 wRC+. That was admittedly aided by some BIP luck and his power was still a little lighter than you’d like, but he got dropped two full grades by all the national evaluators and I really don’t understand why. He wasn’t even moved off third because of suspect defense – it was just a roster bottleneck. House gets traded or injured or busts, and maybe he moves back to third.
Morales also will be in my top 5. In an organization almost devoid of power, a guy who hit 49 homers in three years of college at least provides some reason for hope.
Speaking of the power void, in looking at the numbers, it’s pretty scary. Among actual prospects (sorry Travis Blankenhorn), only five of them even reached double digits in homers: House (19), White (14), Crews (13), Green (13), and Wood (10). Wood has graduated, and White and Green have REALLY struggled with consistent contact.
The issue extends to gap power as well. When you add homers plus doubles, only four prospect reached 30: House (19 HR/21 2B), Crews (13/21), Glasser (8/23), and Pinckney (8/22). Three other notables were close: Lile (6/23), White (14/14), and Green (13/14).
There were 353 players born in the 2000s who hit 10 or more HR this season. Just on average, every team should have 11 to 12 young players hitting double digits. The fact that the Nats have only 6 (de la Rosa also hit 14 HR, who somehow is only one month older than Dylan Crews) is pretty damning, but we already knew the Nats had trouble developing power, so this doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.
Interestingly, the Pirates, who’ve been notoriously bad at developing hitters, have by far the most 21st century born players with 10 or more HR (21!). Surprisingly (or not), the next most is the Yankees and Dodgers with 16 players each (tied with a couple other teams).
In dead last is the Nationals’ 6, which is tied with the Padres.
Oops, sorry, I missed JDLR because of the three levels. Across those levels, he had 14 homers, 23 doubles, . . . and a .167 average with .250 OBP. Wow/ouch.
Those are definitely interesting/damning numbers about how few guys the Nats have with any power.
1. Crews
2. House
3. King
4. Morales
5. Dickerson
6. Lomavita
7. Wallace
8. Hassell
9. Bazzell
10. A. Feliz
HM: Lile, Pinckney, D. Tejeda
Of all the guys I’m saying “ hope springs eternal on “ is TJ White
For sure
OK, taking the plunge:
1. Crews
2. House
(Starts throwing darts)
3. King
4. Morales
(Switches to larger lawn darts)
5. Hassell
6. Lile
7. Wallace
8. Lomavita
9. Pinckney
10. Angel Feliz
Special shout out to Glasser, who was one of the better hitters in the organization as an over-aged player at the lower levels. I’m just not sure that he’s a “prospect,” though. He’s sort of Jake Alu without as much power.
I’m WAY out on a limb on Hassell. I admit it. Just playing a hunch that getting healthy will recharge him, as it seemed to do in Arizona. Between Hassell or Lile generating enough power to be a corner OF, as of now I believe in Hassell more.
I do have high hopes for Dickerson, but he’s a high schooler who hasn’t done anything yet, so we’ll have to see what we have. Feliz would be a senior in high school and had a heck of a season at 17. The diminishing lower minors seems to be making it harder for younger players to find their footing, particularly thrown in against college pitchers at full-season A ball.
Speaking of such things, I still have my fingers crossed for Green, White, Vaquero, and Cox.
Bazzell intrigues me. The position switch takes him from being an average-hitting infielder to an above-average-hitting catcher. Between him and Lomavita, maybe at least one of them will actually hit.
1. Crews
2. House
3. Morales
4. King
5. Lile
6. Hassell
7. Wallace
8. Vaquero
9. Millas
10. A Feliz
HMs would include the recent draftees Dickerson, Lomavita and Bazzell, as well as Hurtado and maybe Nunez in a reach. (I’m hoping he can improve his hitting just a bit at AAA next year – his defense with a true talent 80 wRC+ would be rosterable.)
But all of these guys past King are incredibly flawed and more likely to bust than to become 2 WAR/600 players. We need a couple of them to have upside surprises next season.
Wait, does Millas still count? If so, I’d have him at 5th on my list. But by my count, he’s accrued well over 100 days of service time (yet, infuriatingly, only 31 games played and 95 ABs), which should disqualify him from rookie eligibility.
You are certainly correct re the ROY rules and most (though not all) of the national evaluators.
But I mostly use this exercise to think about surplus value in the system, and I don’t see a reason why Millas should lose his place on the ledger.
To be honest, I’m even reluctant to scrub folks after they hit the AB/IP threshold if they’ve been optioned back down but 9 times out of 10 a player has made it or not by that point. (Except for relievers, I guess. But those guys almost never make a top 10 list in the fired place.).
As much as it pains me to admit it, I like Luke’s suggestion of avoiding guys with a “19” birth year. The name of the site isn’t NationalsRapidlyAgingRolePlayers.com. (Might complicate whether I vote for Cavalli, though.)
Ha – that’s fair enough, though I think it can be illustrative to draw the line and say which prospects are worth more than a useful bench piece and which are not.
But if we’re dropping Millas due to age or time on the active roster, I guess my tenth is Hurtado. I admit I’m placing him there because of hype and scouting write-ups, but that’s also all I have for the draftees, so I don’t feel comfortable either way.
Too ten 2026?
Brenner
Liriano
Hurtado
Carlos Taveres
Etc
Etc
Project Looking Glass in baseball ..
I know that Hurtado was only the age of a high school junior last season, so he’s still got a LONG way to go. Still, I have a hard time getting excited about someone who hit only .218 against essentially high school pitching. Among guys on his team who topped 100 ABs, six of them had higher OPS than Hurtado.